She’s Always There

She's always there standing before the notice board
while I push harder into the table knocking my knees
against the wood jarring cups of green tea
the rain separates us the years ice up
in the clouds til the weight of their
memories overflow and it all comes
down they say we need the rain me
I'm drawn to trees and shrubs vines
flowers even weeds warrant a long
appreciative look at times she's there
still running her eyes over the posters
postits lost and found announcements
engagements arrangements for sale
and otherwise I can't get inside
her head her arms are crossed
hardbound across her chest her
fingers splayed out from her armpits
like small vestigial wings perhaps
she's searching for flying instruction
should the hours be convenient
if her budget allows or else
a tree house she can rent
sleep and eat high off the ground
or maybe the guitar maker
going cheap will sell his soul for a song
or is it just a waiting game the rain
bringing down all this lost love
and indecision all the moments we never
captured in photographs melting now
descending between the notice board
and this table in the shelter of my words
the tea vibrating ever so gently as I
rearrange my limbs my hand racing
across the pale expanse of the page
drawing the ink out of this pen I've been
carrying around not knowing why
never really grasping the reasons for anything
I turn around she's gone
it's never a crisis
just an absence
sudden perhaps depending
on the way I turn my head
or lift my hand
like this
just a pause
and a little breeze

Pomegranate

So little time the number eight
turning and turning on itself
infinity on its head
how arrogant to think
we can symbolize so much
so more than enough so endless
here it is again this time
the branches bare it's winter
one sole fruit holds on
our disbelief suspended
how she disappeared taken abducted
we stopped holding our breath almost
our eyes drift back exhausted
finding the red promise
its leathery case enwrapping seeds
all that's left
who'll take up the knife
split the skin
render the ground
open the grave
listen for the chthonic hoofbeats
even now on our hands and knees
we strain to remember one word of the prayer
the names of the prayed for
the way we cursed the ones we buried
the way her mother cried when she was taken
and at night we lie awake with the vibrations
of her desire for eternal darkness

The People Sitting There

Celluloid images flicker against our eyes
who needs to go anywhere when we can
bend ourselves into soft angles eat popcorn
milk duds twists of red licorice sticks suck
soda from small buckets of ice while the earth
stands still for one day and the eagle lands
the Titanic sinks and Elizabeth Taylor keeps
yelling at Richard Burton after one too many
cry the vicarious! says the madding crowd
while sands fill the pharaohs tomb like water
the Vikings' plunder nested 'round the king
floats out to sea on fire on fire
we follow the force as the heroes and heroines
dance and die on our delicate rods retinae
the curvature of our lens clouds over
with fear hate love grief confusion and
resolution give us this day our beginnings
middles and ends and rolling credits
for points in the star-crossed heavens
indulge in us now and forever just give us
time for a bathroom break the relief
that takes us away from all that war
or salvation but only the bits we won't
miss just remember now how outside
the day is still and filled with cars
quietly waiting to take us home
where we can rest up to return for another
blockbuster keep them coming
while we don't go anywhere
give us another box office hit

Looking At A Lamp

I look at the lamp I see the day recede
the couches chairs cushions magazines
and books that paperweight made
from the ashes of Mt St Helens
the drunk Chinese poet my daughter
brought back from Tibet's border
Crown Point and Rooster Rock
painted by Leland all the light
withdrawing returning
the small statue of Siddhartha
not so small in the dusk
from its place on the mantelpiece
the fire cold dead unbuilt
not even one ash of memory
bowls too thrown by potters
on five continents all falling
into each other as I look and look
as the light dares me to quantify it
this mystery under the floorboards
beating loudly this erstwhile friend
trapped for ever behind stones
enough water enough outside
the melodious laughing thrush
claims its nest in the cedar loudly
the claim sings out daring me
to say why it matters
daring me to admit finally
that what I see is a reflection
of a reflection

outside the bird calls out

Memories Of Big Jim

I felt it after Big Jim the custodian died
the one who laughed like old King Cole
and always called a minute an hour
and a second passing in the hall
a good story moment

I worked in the AV the audio visual department
wheeled 16 mil projectors through our high school
for health and history even math on occasion
then after switching on the machine

became a shadow in the darkened classroom
watched the rows and rows of heads faceless
focused on the screen at the front on its tripod
the one that screeched as I set it up

and then when it was over
I hastily replaced the film in its canister
replaced the cover on the projector
and pushed through the door

to freedom in the empty labyrinth
as the teacher said loudly Okay class
take out your books and turn
to page 1963

or You there what's it about
the Golden Mean
that made Walt Disney smile
or Right everybody

take out a sheet of paper
and answer the following questions—
the dreaded pop quiz—
to see who wasn't paying attention

and if I was quick to return
to my film rewinder
check for breaks
splice as needed

package up the latest
academic celluloid
I could linger by the delivery dock
and chat with Big Jim

who lost one lung
fighting in the war
sailed the seven seas
built his own house

kept chickens
told really bad jokes
and never ever kept me in the shadows
always treated me like a person

with no pop quiz at the end

Something About Pumpkins

Something about pumpkins
how they crawl across available space
far from home if allowed
tentatively one might say

their tendrils tickling teasing twirling
round an innocent stem
a downspout fitting
a length of wire on a fence line

all before the coming of the leaves
big as houses if you're a mouse
huge canopies of elegance
opening their hands to sunlight

directing rain or generally claiming
all of your backyard but that's not all
for one by one the namesake plumps
and grows swells and bells

drops of green gravity
in a network of slow spilled chaos
think of the precious years
when trust entered the bloodstream

our grandmothers and grandfathers
sensing enough to know
this patch of life must
be allowed to flourish

no wanton plunder welcome here
only careful cultivation husbandry
until the table calls out for the knife
and each world surrenders

split asunder
the precious golden orange flesh
hurried along to steamer or oven
till soft enough to bless with butter

and a crisp dry Sauvignon blanc

Metaphors Mixed And The Bases Loaded

The Giants won the sixth game up north
under cover of cloud some rain
surprise elements and we knew
next day we'd have to keep our thoughts
like our mouths shut politics is in the air
things are tense in the outfield later
they will say he shoulda woulda coulda
but still we hold our tongues like fat
one-footed molluscs on the edge of the cave
salt water running in our veins
against all advice we're done with their
dictums and datums we're just walking
watching we're full up with calculus
and fed up sitting on the knife edge
this time we'll watch what happens
do no talking just taking it in through
our eyes and ears maybe the hair
stands up for a scent on the breeze
at the bottom of the third and The Freak
in each and every one of us leads
the way to action without fanfare
this is the time and we know it
for the silent warrior to wrap himself
in compassion and fill the kettle
with rainwater this is the time
to remember the forgotten to see
what the tide brings in and then
in our phosphorescent evenings
set to work in incremental
barely perceptible ways
now all the electricity's down
there's a steady drumbeat in the air
out in Porcupine South Dakota
we can hear it in the traffic here
in this corner of the empire
the tide comes in and we say nothing
while the crowd leaps and cheers
faraway surrounding the diamond
the dugouts the bases and home

This Cobweb Of Rain

This cobweb of rain heavy laden
with unexpected fall low slung
belonging to someone else now
a hundred others a hundred
droplets caught in your fine filaments
spanning the evergreen shrub tips
everything holding everything
so nested have we become
even a glance fills up our work
and our interest in wings
fills us with what not despair
hope released perhaps we know
we were always headed somewhere
somewhere more than a scratch
marked on the wall the primtive
calendar a collander standing
in the kitchen holding some things
while others fall through
all our lives following what we thought
was substance taking it up to our mouths
taking it inside while all along
we might have seen
what keeps moving

Dirty Nails

They say in so many words he doesn't care
maybe a look conveys the judgment of the suburbs
unzipped by the eyes what can a guy do
but carry on with a chance of shame
low in the sky over the left shoulder
this is the forecast whenever you think
there smells evil the glance of death
that separates the living from those
eternally damned to their twisted dogma
and hastily made opinion wow they say
you been gardening or what maybe
a grease monkey maybe stayed up late
making chocolate figurines maybe dark
where you live and cannot find the brush
normally reserved for washing potatoes
those little ugly fruit our ancestors
winkled out of the earth between
blood sacrifices clusters of gold
washed in the mountain stream
saving some to plant for later
touching with some love the dark
green leaves rising out of the ground
marveling with some regard for beauty
the blossoms that say in so many words
the time the tight pastel clusters
that say it's time

Thirst

You are the rainwater
inside the jaws of the giant blue agave

I am the thirsty black cat

Tired Of Rejection

Tired of rejection Martha turned to the wall. "Hi. It's been awhile."

"Wasn't that a Johnny Cash song," said George.

Martha placed both palms flat against the wall and arched her back.

George had seen that done in a television special on yoga one time. A thought flickered across his collegiate brow. Jesus. Maybe it's too, what's the word? dispassionate. He shook his head and said, "You okay?"

She spoke from behind the curtain of hair that screened her suspended face. "I think it was the Beatles."

Now George was really lost. He knew it really couldn't have been the Beatles. It had a country vibe he couldn't put his fingers on. The ice maker in the refrigerator went off, whirring and clunking. Maybe the machines of the world were sent to save us, thought George.

"It's big," said Martha.

"What?" said George. Then he caught himself. Rejection. It came folded up in the morning mail, a little bent from the way the cute postmistress had crammed it into that pigeonhole they called a PO Box, but when you unfolded it, George realized, it was a pretty big rejection.

"Don't..." he cleared his throat.

Martha hadn't moved and her body language, half asana and half comical—My God. She looks like she's going to push the wall down, he thought. No wait. She's holding it up! The wall of rejection. He shook himself again. "Don't some people, uh, writers," he said, "don't they say you can wallpaper your walls with rejection notices?"

"Go to hell," Martha mumbled.

My Mother’s Metaphors

My mother’s an emerald green hummingbird at the kitchen window.
The bird is my dad’s spirit come for the purple heather by the door.
The door opens onto Rossbeigh Strand on a stone cold spring morning.
The morning is the song only she can remember, the one with a banjo.
The four strings are the paths we took from the wild mountains.
The peaks hide the Black Valley’s secrets and hold up the sky.
That’s where the clouds become rashers, eggs and one fried tomato.
Sunrise on the day I left was a bright star shining before and after.
The past waits by the bridge below, wagging its tail, glad to see her.
She is the scent of lavender, a needle piercing the Aran elbow,
the bent knee against the road with the long winding memory.
The memory is a fine bone China cup lifted up and up till there is no more.

Book Of Stars

It’s in the book the one you didn’t read
the title I emailed to you the time you
never replied all this time I’ve wanted to
tell you but now this sensation I’m stranded
on an island and you will never find the
bottle I set afloat the message within
I have no blame in my heart please understand
a little confusion a little memory loss a little
delusion such as did you ever exist I could
number you like a new star seen once in
the void but there are so many the book so
full of numbers but these are different times
when words go out like thoughts transmitted
from one continent to another we are gods we
fly we materialize or in your case not
the war is of course still raging the gates of the
citadel once impregnable await their wooden
horse the surprise that follows the gift
and those long voyages too the rocks the
temptations the sleep inducing plants the
beautiful women at the shoreline powdered in
sand taking their own photographs with their
iPhones you’ll soon be receiving one I’m
sure but I’ve stopped caring these are
different times like I say and the book now
is only an icon an image no signatures
no leaves and pages only slightly more than
figments covering our vulnerabilities was
there something you wanted? I still hear
your voice like it was yesterday but I
can’t assume anything anymore certainly where
you’re concerned I saw you once I felt
your pull your gravitational field your
magnetism perhaps I was mistaken some
configuration rising from the horizon like
heatwaves an illusion I gave a name now
I’m here holding your shell to my ear

The Ditch

There's something warm about surrender she heard herself say
half in water half in dream with a chorus of toads one single
baritone reaching out from beneath a twisted Hilo Moon

overlays of rapid bamboo percussion sections she was lost
for words and finding the right word was vital to her even
here in the direst mirest circumstances not one shadow

only ditch sounds nor even a floating lilikoi to light the way
bufo marinus she said and silence looked hard into the darkness
eyes wide open a little formal isn't it she heard a voice return

would you prefer cane toad she whispered or nameless
proliferators warts and all I beg your pardon he said
aren't you forgetting your manners there's no time she said

like the fossilized arteries of a forgotten goddess the ditch
had no beginning and no end it pulled down the stars
to dank sanctuaries crawling with dead languages

what's with overpopulation anyhow said the toad
we're all racing to the edge of the proverbial cliff
but I prefer the ditch he said you've got a point

she sighed perhaps I'll lie here till the smoke passes
till the haze clears till the burning fields choke
with the bitter people's ashes there's nothing subtle

there's nothing worth redeeming there be careful
said the toad I'm the victim of relocation myself
where's home my kids ask hell forget that thought

home is wherever the sky cries out and down I say
life's either a dance or a game of statues and you
take your chances out there on the tarmac

I've forgotten why she said confiding in the stranger
his implacable bodhisattva smile wide beneath
her fingertips I've lost my way I'm running

yeah dance or statues he mumbled and dropped
out of touch till dawn the world still on fire
crazy people out there with coupons and vouchers

waving flags and political placards standing
on street corners trying to make eye contact
with faceless citizens hunkered down in their bubbles

hands gripping the wheels as long as those hands
gripped the damn wheels they believed in freedom
talk about illusion she sighed and sank into a long sleep

The Last Melon

She walked on knowing if she didn't make a decision before sunset
her confidence her clarity her willingness to gamble everything
would exponentially curve away into the soft greedy darkness.

Her feet began talking to her in that scrunched up way things get
when bits of grit conspire with sock lint to press here or suddenly
over here ooh here this sensitive place near the veruka like random
annoying acupressure from a really angry pedicurist but she couldn't
stop walking she kept an eye on the long ditch to her right fringed
in cane grass and wet with days of rainfall there was something
that compelled her to pay attention to this cut in the land that ran
parallel with the road as she made forward progress.

Birds once settled for the night now burst out of their peace
and she felt irrationally bad for it shaking her head
a toad or frog leaped from the grass into the water
would she do that she wondered when faced with immediate
danger?

Ever since she shouted out in the cantina she'd been running
running from the mob running from the corrupt authorities
she was a Banana Woman a revolutionary figure unarmed
and highly dangerous and she made the grave mistake
of fomenting her open rebellion in a nest of melon growers
bitter melon growers in fact because there was only one
remaining melon in the world and they refused to accept
this fate they stuck together and vowed vengeance they
would sooner starve than admit the Banana Woman
had finally won they would never change their ways
but they would find her and skin her alive and throw
her carcass into the ditch.

Banana Woman

She threw the banana skin down in a clear act of defiance
nay a challenge a Take that! you arrogant so and so a
Put that in your pipe and smoke it! sort of action
or maybe not maybe

She carefully peeled away that banana's yellow cladding
a little spotted she noted then raised the exposed fruit
high in the air and cried Viva la Banana! and everyone
in the cantina held their breath to see what happened next
or perhaps

She's in her F250 diesel bumping and jostling down
open country roads in the wilds of Hawai'i when
through the open window she flings the banana skin
like a limp starfish legs akimbo into the bushes
but she misses and the banana skin smacks into
the Caution Nene Crossing sign and sticks there
splayed out for several days until a county roads
worker stands before the sign with a long bamboo
pole pushing and poking until the now brown
decaying sunburnt skin drops to the ground where
he leaves it walking away with a sense of job
well done leaving the banana skin to rot into
the ground like so much compost
perhaps that's how it went or perhaps perhaps

She was being followed and she blithely threw
down the banana skin into the dark and listened
hard making her way forward listened until
she heard the cry Aaaah! and The Fall

Gathering Of The Elders

If that phrase sounds like a nursing home or even more euphemistically
a care center then your imagination is bereft you are missing some vital
concept your way is too narrow but you will be forgiven for the paradigm
you're sticking to with all four feet like a bewildered gecko wondering
what's up what's down and how long will I keep my tail because that's
the norm ain't it so when we hear that Ms M got medivacked to Queen's
Hospital for an emergency operation and you know what you know
about the cats and dogs the porch suspended in tree tops and the flotsam
and jetsam of one person's life as it finds the waterline on the cruise
ship called our town you think to yourself how much more can I get
out of this teabag how much longer can my day to day look like oh
man I don't even know what I'm talking about as usual I'm talking
around it I'm one too an elder not becoming but arrived and the gathering
is done in passing in coffee shops and market places occasionally at one
another's house but forgive me now for wondering if my lofty use
of that phrase where community elders actually sit around and work
on what's good for the community itself sits there on the bottom
of that stack of dusty metaphors clichés old wives tales and folk
sayings not to mention personal fantasies based on things I heard
about Lakota Yoruba Pitjanjara Inuit Maasai Yaqui Ainu and the
Disappeared in Smoke but Still There at Your Shoulder Grandfathers
and Grandmothers how will we ever know respect when we lock
up our lives in boxes and live alone and what's this about embracing
the kupuna wearing mu'umu'u and shuffling between Nakahara's
and Takata's with our dark secrets we no like share so what
if the people lock up their kids in schools all day race through
what they call lunch to the minute so they can wander around
the playground under supervision so what if people look at you
making two three four journeys a day for one thing maybe
stumble a bit and they say oh! oh! get on with your own life
clean your windows one pane at a time go to the library
at story time get on your knees and get your fingernails
dirty on the pollen path stop feeling so useless forgive yourself
don't listen to any of this and especially that gather together
oh ye elders but remember the old minds of the toddlers and weep
for it is your rain will nourish the catnip arugula and water lilies of the world

Mary Mother Of God

Let's just suffer on page one
where the kid comes running in
covered head to foot in pigshit

the rain floor to ceiling in the big house
a veritable omnipresent waterfall
crying leaking or drowning from each eye

the long arms of despair
if that's what you call hopelessness
in deed fault and fear of recrimination

only the barn full of hay
dry at the back of his mind
but his feet wouldn't take him

page two the funeral
he's your cousin
and we'll buy some paint

while we're at it one five
gallon tin on each handle
we'll be weaving back in the dark

killed in The Troubles and found
floating face down where's
the despair now

with Uncle Chris on the table at the bell
singing I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen
not a dry eye in the house

Death far gone
and the rain abated
I was never one

page three for discriminating
between the death of her chicken
by stoning by my own hand

or Leary bloated up North
the cousin I never met
so whenever I found myself alone

say at the Danish fort
encircled by hawthorn blackthorn
and small oak up there

in the ancient enclave useless now
to man and beast
I thought of what came out of my aunt's mouth

and pictured Herself at the North Pole
Her foot pressed hard at the Serpent's throat
His eyes bulging like two moons
trying to break free

Press It

Press it and hold it will anyone come
to let you in or will the entire landscape
disappear and leave you standing
in your birthday suit

I hear there's a sky in heaven
I hear there's one in hell too
I hear he asked you to just
let it go and you're the victim

of course why wouldn't he
say that he came in a dream
but will he answer the door
or better yet get on a bus

head straight for the ocean
not escaping so much as
landscaping your mood
filling in your depression

press it indeed knowing there's
a spark between every button
and the world of existence
it's hard to believe in say

Christmas or Democracy
keep your hands in your pockets
as you walk the shoreline
admit yourself to the witness

protection program for those
who didn't see a thing
for those who walked away
see that interesting shell?

someone's house once
now up against your ear
the ocean becomes your own
and the wind builds roofs

over the dwelling called
without a care or the wearing
away of the long guilt
smoothly we go

with our hollow houses
held tight against the coming
there on the shoreline where
a crab struggles upside down

legs tickling the air
but nobody laughing

Anosognosia

You don't know what you don't know
not that I'm accusing you dear reader
I'm taking a look at myself too and
I know as much as I can say I know
that I have tiptoed over the surface of

the world since infancy sure I broke
off weedstalks to use as fake swords
when I was rescuing fair damsels
in the garden and threw salt over my
shoulder too because Granny said so

and ever since collected other
people's superstitions like baseball
cards except I can't trade them well
maybe I could maybe I could swap
the black cat crossing the road for

don't cut your hair after sunset belief
here in the islands nor can I follow
the old wives' tales like baseball teams
to see who's on first or how many
RBIs and DUIs got racked up by

walking under a ladder or or
but I digress I'm the first one
to say you would be amazed
at how much I don't know
about myself even biologically

anatomically osteopathically
the pathways of the nerves
the web of sensitivity that runs
head to toe I can allude
to these inner workings

but I am not intimate even
with my own physiology
isn't it ironic I'd have to go
to medical school to find out
how the cranium flaunts

its fontanelle like a rift
in the seabed floor of my
blind mind on fingertips on
the home keys right here
just feeling my way